Upper Class Angst

I recently shared an article on Facebook that summed up the anger that many feel.  The point of this series of three blogposts is not to discuss the article. I posted it to show the anger that is currently felt, and how this helps Trump.

Why are the upper class filled with angst? Before I answer that I need to define what I mean by upper class. I mean the entrepreneurial part of society--business owners of small to medium businesses, CEO and CFO's of medium business, upper middle management of large companies and so on. I am not including the stereotypical 1%, the powers that be, whatever you want to call them, as they are part of the problem, they are to a degree the cause of the angst.

The article blames taxes for the author's angst. This is fair. The 1% tend to structure their income in such a way to pay 20% of their income or so in personal taxes. But the upper class cannot always structure their income that way, so they pay the full brunt of the highest marginal rates if they have  enough income. But the main reason the entrepreneurial class is surviving angst is Walmart, Walgreens, Lowes, Staples and especially Amazon. Each of these mega corporations has devastated a whole industry of independent retailers.

No doubt you expect me to pick up my "occupy Wall Street" sign and rant away. You would be mistaken. If a local business cannot compete with Amazon on a level playing field, then it deserves to fail. But notice I said level playing field. Amazon until recently had a 5 to 10% price advantage right off the top because they used to not have to pay sales tax. Now they do. I think that the loss of this is going to have a negative impact on Amazon sales. There are still other ways these corporations cheat. While this is less true for the retailers I mentioned, the gimmicks used by corporations to "legally" move income from the US to lower tax areas are truly epic in scope, i.e. Apple has $200 billion in other countries.

One way corporations have an advantage is that they will approach nearby towns and say to each, we will build in one of your towns, and you will get the advantages of the store, the other town gets nothing. Like Monty Hall of the old game show they say, "Let's make a deal!" The two towns bid down their property taxes to a very low level. The other businesses, that now have to compete with Walmart, might actually see their taxes go up to pay to subsidize the competition. The towns know if they don't deal, the other town will. I would call this blackmail.

In addition the big companies squeeze their suppliers. "If you don't cut the price of your widget, China Widgets will." This cause more angst among the entrepreneurs in the Walmart supply chain. Most Walmart suppliers do not actually make much money from the business with Walmart, but unless they want to cut their sales by 50% they have to go along.

Big companies also can borrow money for 2 or 3 percent. They can get it even cheaper if they keep the loan maturity low. I pay 6%. Credit card as a way to raise capital? Donteventhinkaboutit.

So back to Trump. As a member of the 1% he has made his fortune negotiating with various principalities and powers to get the best deal. To the banker he has said, take your loan and ..... I did not sign the loan personally, so you are stuck, not me. I don't actually think that Trump will help business people, he is in too deep with the 1%. But the perception is that he will, and he will receive a lot of support from this class, but they will all deny it!

Soon I will talk about middle class angst and how that helps Trump.

Why Do I Like Putin?

The title of this post was the question I was asked on Facebook recently. Let me reword the question in this way: "Which world leader would I like to have a beer with?" There is Putin and then there is ... there is ... well, I can't think of a second one. I do like the Russian beer Baltika, Baltika 4 in particular, so that's a plus. One beer should not cause me to have a gout episode, it would be worth it. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. This one-eyed man is Putin. 

But the question really is along the lines of another question. "Why do you hate America so much?" I don't. But I am not blind to the policies of the US. I saw a bumper sticker that I agree with, so I know I am right. It said.  "Support the troops." Who could disagree with that? But above this caption was a Star Wars figure, a storm trooper. Is this fair? Not entirely. But look at the numbers--how many Iraqis have died directly and indirectly to US war-making? The answer is at least one million. How many have died as a result of Putin's adventures in Ukraine? The answer is less than ten thousand. I have heard the argument that "Sure America is bad, but other countries are worse." I am not sure the math supports this argument. 

What do I mean about the blindness of the American leadership? The proposal for a "no-fly zone" in Syria is a good example. There aren't that many candidates that are against it. Rand, O'Malley, and Sanders are against it. Clinton is in favor of such a zone. Apparently Trump and Cruz do not have an opinion. I had thought that Trump was against and Cruz in favor, but the research I did says otherwise.  (One of Trump's advantages is that the voter reads their own ideas onto Trump, "He is my candidate.") All other candidates are in favor. One candidate, who out of kindness I will not name, proposed to "punch the Russians in the nose." 

What is a "no-fly zone"? From Wikipedia: 

A no-fly zone (or no-flight zone) (NFZ) is a territory or an area over which aircraft are not permitted to fly. Such zones are usually set up in a military context, somewhat like a demilitarized zone in the sky, and usually prohibit military aircraft of a belligerent power from operating in the region. Aircraft that break the no-fly zone may be shot down, depending on the terms of the NFZ.

The previous incarnation of this policy in Libya was approved by the UN. This will not happen in Syria due to an obvious Russian veto. This means that the zone would be illegal under international law. The "red meat" Republicans, and Hillary Clinton, don't seem to care. 

To understand how catastrophic this policy would be we need to look at the civil war in Ukraine. Ukraine could either join the Russian free trade block, with whom they did most of their trading, or the European trade block, the EU. Ukraine could not join both. If they joined the EU then Russian tariffs would kick in, and visa-versa.  They had to choose. Ukraine was ready to join the EU, but a last-minute increase in the Russian offer led Prime Minister Yanukovych to change his mind. Riots ensued. While there was obvious anti-Russian sentiment in Ukraine, the riots were funded by the West. How do we know this? Victoria Nuland admitted it. 

The US spent 5 billion dollars to get Ukraine "into" Europe and it is not going to let a little thing like an elected Ukrainian government get in the way!  

The US basically selected the new Ukrainian government. How do we know this? Victoria Nuland admitted it. 

Of course the US was quite miffed that the Russians were able to intercept this phone call. While the US did not get everything it wanted, this call shows the large measure of control that the State Department has over Ukrainian governmental decisions. As the saying goes, "He who pays the piper, decides the tune." 

Why was Russia so concerned about the Ukraine joining the EU? One reason was that all EU countries have mutual defense agreements. While Ukraine's entry into the EU would not technically be an entry into NATO, in a de facto way it would be. In addition to the obvious NATO plan to encircle Russia, this would leave Russia's most important warm-water naval base eventually in NATO control. As an artifact of the dissolving of the Soviet Union, these naval facilities, even though they had been Russian for 150 years, were inside the new Ukraine. Russia leased these facilities from Ukraine. These leases were due to expire in 2042. It would be unacceptable to any Russian leader for these bases to be NATO bases, as they would have been eventually. To give you a time frame for how long Crimea was a part of Russia, this is about as long as California has been a part of the United States. How fond are Americans of California? No leader of the Russian Federation is going to allow these ports to leave Russian control. War would be preferable to them. 

The idea that Putin is being provocative is just not an adequate read on the situation. For a longish article on why Putin is doing what he is doing, click here.  

Putin is like a circus juggler. He has to keep the balls of Russian interests in the air while dodging the balls Victoria Nuland throws at him. So far he hasn't dropped anything-- not even the spinning plates on a stick. You have to admire his skill. 

Since I still think Hillary Clinton will be the next President, and she favors a no-fly zone, aka war with Russia, one can only hope for the best. Do I "like" Putin? I do not see the question as important or even interesting. I hope he does well with his juggling. If Putin "drops the ball," we are all dead. 

"had to be pre planned"

Was the Turkish downing of the Russian SU-24 planned in  advance?

The video below discusses the downing of the Russian bomber. While the host cutting the General McInerney short was probably due to hard commercial breaks, I did find it of interest that the most damning part of the interview was cut short. McInerney was basically saying that the incident had to have been pre planned. Since we know that the Russians had provided the US with its flight plans, the Turkish F-16 may have been laying-in-wait for just such an opportunity. I have been considering this for several days and have been reluctant to conclude this was the case. 

I suggest that the words of an expert might be of interest. 

Here is how the Washington Blog described McInerney. 

McInerney served as:

• Commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (Norad) – the military agency responsible for protecting the United States and Canada from foreign jet attacks – for the Alaska region

• Commander of the Alaskan Air Command

• Commander of 11th Air Force in Alaska

• Commander of the 3rd Tactical Fighter Wing, Clark Air Base, Philippines

• Commander of the 313th Air Division, Kadena Air Base, Japan

• Commander of 3rd Air Force, Royal Air Force Station Mildenhall, England

• Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force
• A command pilot with more than 4,100 flying hours, including 407 combat missions

The Turkish government must think this will help them domestically, but it seems really dumb to me.

Fake and Facebook Go Together

It really does not matter whether a conservative or liberal shares one of these posters on Facebook. The percentage of them that are fake is quite high. Here is the Facebook Putin, not the real one.

"To forgive the terrorists is up to God, to send them to him is up to me.” 

Such a nice quote, it sounds so Putin, or as I put it, it sounds like the Facebook Putin. This Putin must live with the Facebook Obama, the Obama born in Kenya. No doubt the Rothchilds own the home they live in. 

This is actually Denzel Washington in the movie Man on Fire. 

I would be thankful, as is proper today and does go along with another Facebook meme, if everyone just researched these posters, or not share them at all because Facebook is often a fact-free zone. Since Facebook is crowd-sourced, it is only as good as we make it. At least cat pictures are cute.  

Tricolor Facebook?

Maybe I am jaded, but the various memes on facebook are somewhat selective. They fit into certain preset patterns that are predictable. One of these was to show "support" for France by overlaying your profile picture with the three colors of the French flag. Yes ISIS attacked French people going about their own business. With that in mind, let's talk about another attack by ISIS on those minding their own business. 

From Reuters:  

President Vladimir Putin vowed to hunt down those responsible for blowing up a Russian airliner over Egypt and intensify air strikes against Islamists in Syria, after the Kremlin concluded a bomb had destroyed the plane last month, killing 224 people. 

So can I conclude that I will be overwhelmed with the number of people announcing they are "supporting" Russia by changing their Facebook profiles with an overlay of the Russian flag? It is the same colors, so no work is necessary for those who already have supported France.

I won't hold my breath.